Dubious Healthcare Offers Account for 72% of Global Spam

by Felix Richter, Statista.com

Most people who regularly use email have probably grown accustomed to the constant stream of spam littering their inboxes.

After years of email use, who hasn’t been offered magic weight loss pills, part of a Nigerian fortune or a safe and reliable way to make some body parts smaller, bigger or whatever shape just happens to be en vogue?

According to data published by cyber security firm Trustwave, 60% of inbound emails in 2014 were spam. That’s down from more than 90% in 2008, but 6 in 10 emails being junk is still a pretty annoying ratio.

Thankfully, according to Trustwave’s sample of billions of emails, only 6% of spam mails are really malicious, meaning they carry a link or an attachment which could install malware on a reader’s computer when clicked on. The most common form of spam is pharmaceutical-related junk mail, offering magic remedies, performance enhancements and so on.

This chart shows the most common categories of spam mails sent in 2014.

You will find more statistics at Statista